


boldness be my friend

by neroh



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Space Pirates, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-14 01:46:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4545441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neroh/pseuds/neroh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Original prompt:</b> Mckirk, hostage situation! Because Bones would naturally go easy on Jim, and feel bad for kidnapping him in the first place.</p><p>In which Leonard is a space pirate and Jim is still a Starfleet captain, yet they manage to fall for each other anyways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	boldness be my friend

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Bre for betaing this! You rock. :)
> 
> Title comes from William Shakespeare.

So here’s the thing about Leonard McCoy: he _used to be_ an upstanding citizen of the Federation.

He had a job, he had a house with a white picket fence and a pretty wife, and he paid his taxes. All was perfect in his perfect little slice of the universe until it wasn’t and he was seized by an insatiable wanderlust that took him into the stars.

It’s actually pretty hilarious because he used to hate even thinking about space travel, let alone living on a starship with a motley crew of misfits from all over.

There’s Spock, who is half human, half Vulcan. He’s an alright guy so long as one doesn’t argue with him because, goddammit, he’ll dance circles around Leonard with his so-called logic.

Nyota is the communications officer and one hell of a fighter when it comes down to it. She also pacifies Spock with a flirtatious smile and a bit of whispered sweet nothings into his ear.

Scotty, Hikaru, and Pavel are just loud. Loud as sin, each man going up several decimals from the other and giving Leonard a headache. Keenser just follows them around, rolling his beady, black eyes and being completely chagrined.

How this became his life, Leonard has no idea. All he knows is that he’s happier than he’s been in years and is no longer anchored to Earth.

Until he suddenly is by way of some hot shot captain he and Spock accidentally end up kidnapping.

So here’s the other thing about Leonard McCoy: he’s a sucker for a blue eyes, especially the cerulean ones he’s gawking at as this kid brandishes a phaser in his fucking face.

If there’s one thing that Leonard can appreciate is that God, this guy is beautiful. He’s all sun kissed and strong, put together like a demigod and yelling at the doctor to drop his weapon.

He’s so lost in those big, blue eyes that he barely misses Spock sneaking up behind the kid and phaser-whipping him with the blunt end of his weapon.

In a matter of seconds, the kid’s eyes widen in surprise before rolling into the back of his head and the sound of a cranium hitting a metal pipe fills the turbine room.

Leonard and Spock stare at each other, both of their jaws slack as they look upon the third man.

Unsurprisingly, he’s out cold.

“Is he breathing?” Leonard squawks, before remembering that he’s a goddamn doctor. He kneels over the fallen body and feels for a pulse, which greets him with a steady _thump, thump, thump_. “Jesus, Spock! What were you thinking?”

Spock raises a brow. “He was threatening you.”

“But you didn’t have to crack his skull!” the doctor counters through gnashed teeth. He notices a steady trickle of blood spilling onto the steel floor under the kid’s head. “Fuck! This is bad.”

“What’s bad?” Hikaru shouts as he appears out of thin air. “Whoa!” he exclaims, noticing the unconscious man. “Damn, that’s harsh!”

Leonard palms his face. “We can’t just leave him,” he says to Spock.

“Yes we can,” Hikaru tells him, gesturing to the starship all around them. “Besides, someone will find him soon enough.”

“He might have a brain herniation or intracranial pressure or a hemorrhage and you know, _fucking_ die!” Leonard barks.

Spock glances at the fallen captain, then back to Leonard, looking conflicted and somewhat guilty because this kid was only doing his job. “Take him with us,” he orders softly.

“Seriously?” Hikaru shouts as he comes upon them. He nudges the kid when his boot, eliciting a groan from the unconscious man. “It’s bad enough we just attacked a Starfleet ship…and we’re going to kidnap one of their captains?”

“He is clearly wounded,” Spock states as he kneels down and lifts the captain into a fireman’s carry, neglecting to mention that he was the one who injured him. “And Leonard is a doctor.”

They hurry back to the transporter, Hikaru arguing all the while. He continues to tell them what a bad idea this is as he punches their ship into warp and they jettison out into space.

“We’re so fucked!” Hikaru tells Leonard as he runs a regen over the unconscious man’s scalp laceration. “Do you even know whose kid he is?”

 _Do you even know how much I want to punch you in the face right now?_ he thinks to himself with a disgruntled sound. “I haven’t checked,” Leonard replies.

“George Kirk! That’s Jim _fucking_ Kirk!” the pilot shouts. “We’re so fucked, man!”

He shoos Hikaru from the closet-sized med bay and goes back to working on his patient in peace because he’s a doctor, not a counselor, Jesus H. Christ!

 

* * *

 

Jim wakes up a day later with a pained groan and a curse.

Leonard is a bit hesitant to go over and check because the kid is prone to talking nonsense in his sleep. Something about starships, Orions, and quoting Shakespeare, while other times it’s just incoherent gibberish.

Under different circumstances, the doctor would consider it charming because it is. If he’s learned anything about the captain, it’s that he’s an ardent bookworm.

The sound comes again, more coherent this time, and Leonard quietly leaves his workspace, setting his PADD down. He walks towards the source of the noise and is quickly at Jim’s side as he struggles to push himself upright.

“Easy now,” Leonard orders as he eases the kid back down onto the mattress. “You’ll end up losing your lunch.”

“Lunch?” Jim croaks as his lids droop. The muscles of his throat work furiously to swallow and judging by the grimace on his face, it must be dry. He’s been unconscious for a good while with only hyposprays designed to keep him hydrated and medicated in his system.

Leonard grabs an electrolyte drink pack, one of the souvenirs he picked up at an outpost, and opens it. “Drink this slowly,” he instructs, pushing to the drink to the kid’s lips. He cups the back of Jim’s head, lifting him to recline.

Jim grunts from the movement, but obeys Leonard as he tentatively sips the drink. Pain medication still has its grip on him, making the kid’s eyes appear dull and his body sluggish.

Leonard isn’t entirely surprised; Spock isn’t aware of how strong he actually is and has a tendency to overdo it. The pack is almost empty and Leonard eases it out of Jim’s grip. “That’s enough for now,” he tells him, laying him back down.

“Hurts,” Jim mutters, indicating his head.

“I’ll give you something for that,” he assures the other man. “Gonna warn you now—it’s going to hurt for a while.”

Jim’s lids flutter shut, as if he’s trying to block out the pain, and he smirks. “Your bedside manner could use a little work,” he rasps as Leonard loads up the hypo.

“I’m not used to having company down here,” Leonard admits as he injects Jim.

The younger man licks his lips. “Shame,” he says. “Someone as good looking as you being left all alone.”

“That would be the concussion talking,” Leonard tells him, trying not to crack a smile. “Sorry about Spock, by the way,” he mentions as he run his tricorder over Jim’s head. “He gets bit overzealous during our raids.”

The younger man huffs a laugh, wincing a moment later. “Whoever he is, he’s like a space ninja,” Jim mumbles. “I didn’t even hear him.”

“He will pleased to know that,” Leonard counters, smiling when the kid’s eyes open. “Spock takes a lot of pride in being stealthy.”

His words are met with a tired, bleary smile that makes his skin go hot and his heart hammer inside of his chest. A little voice in his head tells Leonard that despite all appearances, he cannot let his defenses down. This kid is their hostage; just a bargaining chip and nothing more.

So what if Leonard wants to brush a stray lock of hair off of Jim’s forehead or finds himself watching the kid as he sleeps or thinks of all of the ways he could make the younger man’s lips go cherry red?

He’s just a hostage—a _really_ good looking hostage that bestows Leonard with the nickname Bones after an hour long rant about Jim’s skull.

“That’s not my name,” Leonard grouses over Jim’s snickering.

The kid, goddamn him, shrugs and grins lazily from the BioBed, folding his arms under his head like they are two friends hanging out. “I like it better than Leonard,” Jim says, disdain for his birth name evident on his tongue. “It sounds like you should be an old man.”

“While Bones is the name of a thug,” the doctor counters.

“Or space pirate,” Jim adds, smile still plastered to his face.

 

* * *

 

The thing about Jim is that he endears himself to everyone on the ship, even Hikaru who swore up and down that they were going to be blown to bits once the Federation found them.

Once their hostage—who is growing to be less of a hostage with each passing day—is able to stand on his own feet without becoming dizzy, he makes himself useful.

He assists Scotty and Pavel with the turbines, coming to meals covered in grease and grime all over his person, plays three dimensional chess with Spock, and talks about literature with Nyota. Jim even manages to soothe Hikaru’s panic of having him on board the ship and end up talking about sports for hours.

Then there are the hours that Jim spends in Leonard’s quarters, drinking bourbon with grease still buried in his fingernails. Conversation and banter flow easily between the two of them and Leonard finds himself hopelessly smitten with the Starfleet captain.

There are many mornings where Leonard jerks off in the shower, imagining that his fist is Jim’s hot, greedy mouth or that he’s fucking the kid through the mattress.

“I want to kiss you,” Jim declares one alcohol fueled evening. They are sitting on the floor of the observation deck, passing a bottle of something between them.

Leonard nearly chokes on his swallow, feeling the drink sticking to the sides of his throat as he coughs and sputters. “Jesus, kid,” he grumbles. “Warn a guy before you say shit like that!”

“Bones,” Jim says carefully, leaning over him with a teasing smile, pressing their bodies together.

God, Leonard can barely breathe they’re so close. He can make out the navy blue freckles and pale sections that resemble icicles in Jim’s eyes.

And Jim is just smiling, staring him down as he brushes his lips against Leonard’s. “Can I kiss you?” he asks.

“Is this a ploy to distract me while you escape?” Leonard finds himself saying, his voice hoarse and filled with pure, utter _want_.

Jim shakes his head, laughing. It makes the corners of his eyes crinkle and the irises shine brighter, if that’s possible. “No,” he answers, nuzzling Leonard’s jaw. “I want to stay here with you.”

“What about Starfleet?”

“What about it?”

They stare at each other for a charged moment before Leonard decides to grow a pair and pull Jim down to him for a kiss.

Leonard is no poet, but having the kid’s mouth against his own is the stuff of dreams, if dreams were made of velvet and heat. He cradles the younger man’s face between his hands, stroking his stubble covered cheeks as their tongues find themselves tangled against one another.

He thinks of warm Georgia evenings with the sun hanging low in the sky, a myriad of colors as crickets sing on the breeze. Of lazy afternoons in a hammock or kissing inside of his parent’s barn as rain patters against the metal roof.

Of home.

It’s clear by the awestruck look on Jim’s face when they pull apart that he feels the same way, too.

And later, once Leonard has taken the younger man apart with lips, hands, and his cock, he knows that Jim isn’t going anywhere.

Not by a long shot.


End file.
